Free Black Dog by Caitlin Kittredge Page B

ground and sitting down.
    â€œJust like my condo on Flamingo,” Leo said. “Except this place has a painting of a sad clown to replace my flat screen.”
    He took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves before he grabbed the ice bucket. “Sit tight,” he said. “I’m going to grab some stuff to stitch up your cut.”
    â€œI don’t need . . .” I started, but the door had already slammed.
    I looked at the ceiling stains while I waited for Leo, listened to a hooker on the second floor curse out a john in English, Spanish, and what sounded like broken Cantonese—­impressive—­and tested the TV, which got a fuzzy porn channel and a shopping network selling me cubic zirconium jewelry that even Liberace would have said was a tad flashy.
    Leo would learn that he didn’t need to take care of me if he stuck around, but he wasn’t going to. If playing nurse took his mind off things, then I wasn’t going to pee on his parade. I liked him as much as I liked any human, but he’d learn soon enough why even warlocks didn’t become best buddies with Hellspawn.
    I pulled my knees up to my chest and listened to the helmet-­headed bimbo on TV drone on about the brilliance index. I used to love the television—­when they first started showing up everywhere, I always found a way to catch crap like The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Lost in Space, and Twilight Zone. Humans were scared of all the wrong things, I realized when I started watching TV. Nuclear war, Communists, monsters out there in the dark.
    The monsters weren’t out there, though. They’d already come inside, infected the world like the zombie virus in Night of the Living Dead. Humans with a little power would always try to peer into the darkness, and things like Gary would always be there waiting, ready to cement Hell’s foothold in their world another inch or two.
    Really, I had more in common with them than I’d realized before I’d started watching those shows. We were both small things in a vast forest, and we could only walk so far before something higher up the food chain snatched us in its jaws.
    All at once the room was too tight and too hot, feeling exactly like the filthy little box it was. I ran into the bathroom and spun the tap, orange rust water splashing over my shirt. I ripped it off, tossing it in the tub. It stank like stale sweat anyway, and was in even worse shape than me.
    I ducked my head down and splashed water on my face until all the blood and salt crust was gone, and my hairline was damp. Black strands stuck to my skin when I came up for air, but I’d staved off the panic attack.
    I wasn’t used to being anchorless. I’d seen a thousand motel rooms just like this one, but I’d always been going somewhere on a collection or going back to Gary. Now there was nothing except this.
    Vomit took the expressway up my throat and I dove for the toilet, which was a dubious choice at best. The grime-­streaked bowl didn’t help, and I retched until my abdomen cramped and my head was pounding.
    â€œTake some deep breaths.”
    I shrieked and skidded backward on the slick tile until I hit the tub, where I managed to yank the curtain rod down and start an avalanche of tiny shampoo bottles.
    The demon put down the toilet lid and sat, clicking her tongue. “You must be Ava. I’m Lilith. You’re not at all what I expected, based on the things Gary said.”
    A weird thing happens when you see a demon in the flesh. They’re like a truck bearing down on you, even if they’re just sitting there. You lose all logic and sense, and your hindbrain jumps in and sets up a litany of ohfuckohfuckohfuckohfuck . Which really is a perfectly normal reaction for a bunny rabbit running smack into a hungry wolf.
    I’d managed to go my whole existence as a hound without running into Gary’s boss. Clearly, I’d run through my luck when